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Really weird Snow Leopard font problem

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:51:19 -0700

I just upgraded to Snow Leopard, and since then, some of my fonts are MAJORLY screwed up in iWork '09 (Pages, Keynote and Numbers). Specifically, my entire extended family of Hoefler Text.

Here's a screenshot of what my Hoefler Text fonts look like inside Pages:
http://www.ferdinandcc.org/hoefler1.png

(The menu should read as follows: Engraved, Engraved 2, Roman, Roman Alt, Roman SC, Regular, Italic, Alt, Italic SC, Italic Swash SC, etc.)

And here's Hoefler Text in action (Hoefler Text Regular appears fine, but Italic looks screwed up):
http://www.ferdinandcc.org/hoefler2.png

The fonts worked just fine under Leopard, and also work fine in my other apps I've tested them in (TextEdit, Pagehand, Scrivener), and they also show up just fine in Font Book and Fontcase.

Here's what I've tried so far to repair the issue:

1. I reinstalled the fonts. Didn't work.
2. I used AppZapper to get rid of all traces of iWork, then reinstalled iWork off the disc. Didn't work.
3. I repaired disk permissions. Didn't work.
4. I entirely deleted ALL Hoefler Text font files out of both my user/library and my /library. This is where things got really weird. When I deleted Hoefler Text, it quit appearing in Font Book, TextEdit, etc. but in Pages, et. al it was still there!
5. I purchased FontDoctor and scanned my font folders. No problems there. However, when I copied all my Hoefler Text fonts to a folder on my desktop and then scanned that folder alone, it said the fonts were incompatible with this system (but if that's the case, then why do they work in every other application on my Mac, including Font Book?)

Note: the file type is PostScript Type 1 outline font.

These fonts are very important to me, as they're part of my organization's corporate branding guidelines and are used in all our documents and publications! [via http://ask.metafilter.com/]

Safari 4 add-on roundup: updates are here

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:10:28 -0800

Now that we have had a couple of days to play with and dissect Apple's new Safari 4 beta, it's time to survey the state of its third-party add-ons and utilities. Most of the major players have already added Safari 4 support, but updates are arriving quite quickly from across Safari's third-party ecosystem. Here's a list of recently-updated add-ons that now work with the Safari 4 beta.

Click here to read the rest of this article

[via http://arstechnica.com/]

iMac touchscreens, iPod HD radio and iPhone sync issue fixed

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Filed under: TUAW Business

	Gigaware adapter brings HD Radio to iPod touch and iPhone for $80 Up until now, there have been just two ways to get HD Radio in a portable, handheld solution: buy a Zune HD, or opt for Insignia's NS-HD01. As of today, Gigaware is changing all that...		New iMac and MacBook touchscreens debut, thanks to Troll Touch Troll Touch -- the fun little company with the unfortunate name -- have announced more of their award-winning analog resistive touch kits for 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs as well as unibody Macs...
	Gigabyte fixes iPhone sync issue with BIOS update The Intel P55 Express chipset snafu that caused iPhones to lose their syncing minds has now been remedied -- at least by one motherboard maker.	Also of interest: Verizon takes another swing at AT&T, puts iPhone on the Island of Misfit Toys Nokia vs. Apple: the in-depth analysis

All above via Engadget

TUAW iMac touchscreens, iPod HD radio and iPhone sync issue fixed originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone - Apple - IpodTouch - HD Radio - IPod [via http://www.tuaw.com/]

Apple Magic Mouse Review

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:00 -0700

The Magic Mouse is undoubtedly the best mouse Apple's made in years. They've taken their knowledge in trackpad finger gestures and one-piece manufacturing and made this delicate, yet sturdy, bridge-shaped mouse. The question is how it compares to other mice.

As we said in the hands-on, the mouse has one piece of clear white plastic on the top, curved, like a Dove bar. It has both right and left clicks, like the Mighty Mouse, but differentiates itself from other mice with its touch-sensitive scrolling and two-fingered gestures. That's the big selling feature (other than the fact that it is a beautiful looking mouse).

As a mouse

The Magic Mouse is a very, very pretty mouse—something you wouldn't feel like you had to hide when not in use—and looks different enough from other mice that people will ask who made it, before awkwardly mumbling a nevermind as they spot the grey Apple logo.

Compared to ergonomic mice, the Magic Mouse is really low and aerodynamic, which means it doesn't contour to your hand and doesn't give the sensation that the mouse is a part of your hand, like Logitech mice tend to. But it is Bluetooth, so you don't need an extra dongle, and it's powered by two AA batteries, which get up to four months of use per charge, according to Apple.

Physically moving the mouse and mousing is fine and smooth, since there are two plastic bars on the mouse's underside that minimize contact with whatever surface you're on.
Even though there's no clear delineation between right and left buttons on the mouse itself, the Magic Mouse knows to interpret a click on the left or right half appropriately (though right click needs to be activated from inside System Preferences before you can use it).

As for tracking, it's a pretty standard laser technology that tracks decently on most surfaces, including jeans and chairs. Still, the Magic Mouse doesn't have the crazy tracking ability that Logitech's MX mice just introduced—so it can't track on glass, and it can't track on glossy surfaces like the 13-inch MacBook.

The scrolling

The one thing Apple did completely right in the Magic Mouse was the touch scrolling. It's fluid, natural and works with any amount of fingers on over 75% of the mouse surface (all the way down to the Apple logo). Flicking up and down gets you up and down web pages fast, as long as you have "momentum" turned on in the settings. Turn it off and you get fine-grained 1:1 scrolling—good if you want to slowly navigate through a PDF doc.

You can also click with one finger and scroll with another, letting you highlight blocks of text like you would on a normal scrolling mouse. On the whole, there's no major piece of scrolling functionality (other than a middle click) that you lose transitioning from a standard scroll wheel to this touch-sensitive solution. You just get the ability to scroll in 360 degrees as a bonus.

The only flaw is that you sometimes activate the left (or right) click when you're scrolling too emphatically. I suspect this is just something you'll get used to over time, but it can be annoying when you're trying to scroll and you navigate somewhere else instead.

Using two finger swiping to navigate web pages, on the other hand, is a bit more awkward. You'll need to pinch the mouse on the sides with your thumb and fourth/pinkie finger while you're scrolling, forcing you to make a painful eagle claw all the time.

What it can't do

As good as the swiping gestures are, they're limited in what you can actually accomplish with them. You can't use more than three fingers at a time, because you won't have enough fingers left to hold the mouse. There's also no option for touch-sensitive clicking, like in trackpads, something that would have been cool to have just as a bonus. You also can't tell which side is up just from touch until you click down and feel nothing happen.

So far the Magic Mouse is only compatible with the iMacs that they ship with, but will get broad support soon.

It also can't manage to stay free from scratches, similar to white MacBooks that also get scratched very easily. But the blemishes don't interfere with the mouse's functionality—it's just painful to watch any new product lose its pristine finish so quickly.

Is this the best mouse Apple has ever made?

Yeah, it is. The Magic Mouse is much better than the Mighty Mouse, which people hated, and might actually be good enough that non-Mac users might want to pick it up as well, supposing that they don't really care about ergonomics. Since it fills the gap between a tiny travel mouse and a full sized desktop mouse, the Magic is in a good position to grab users on both ends.

It looks very nice

Touch scrolling works well

Swiping is less comfortable

Not very ergonomic

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Your headphones' mic not working? Don't sweat it.

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:00:00 -0700

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, Troubleshooting

While I love the functionality of Apple's microphone-enabled headphones (both the Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic, which comes with the iPhone 3G S, and the iPhone Stereo Headset, which came with previous iPhones), I've found that the extra layers of functionality also bring extra layers of troubleshooting when they're not working right. For simplicity sake, I'll refer to said models as "iPhone headphones" in this post (non-volume control model pictured).

The most common issues I've come across pertain to the microphone. Unlike most non-microphone enabled headphones, which use a standard two-ring TRS connector (tip, ring, sleeve), the iPhone adds an extra ring to support microphone functionality. This is what the hardcore audiophile refers to as TRRS (tip, ring, ring, sleeve).

But if your pockets are consistently filled with lint and dust (or tater tots if you happen to store them there), that extra ring won't make full contact with the iPhone's headphone jack. Which means that you, unfortunately, will lose microphone functionality.

One way to fix this is to remove any dust or lint trappings in the phone's jack. I've found that wrapping a toothpick with a thin layer of toilet paper and brushing it lightly against the walls of the headphone jack helps out a great deal. It's also important to not dip said toothpick in water or moisture. There's a moisture sensor in the iPhone's headphone jack. When exposed to moisture, it changes color and could potentially void your warranty. Also, the usual disclaimer in do-it-yourself scenarios apply: you're doing this at your own risk, so proceed with caution.

Continue reading Your headphones' mic not working? Don't sweat it.

TUAW Your headphones' mic not working? Don't sweat it. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - Apple - IPod - TUAW - Headphones [via http://www.tuaw.com/]

Nvidia CEO loves Apple, possesses mysterious alien device

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800

Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, Graphic Design

Talk about burying the lead -- Shufflegazine did a piece on Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Hwang during a visit to Dubai recently, in which he talks about how much he and his family love their Macs, and Apple's machines add value, and in his house it's just "Mac, Mac, Mac," and OH MY GOD, what is that SITTING ON THE TABLE in front of him? OK, it's ~~probably not~~ definitely not an Apple tablet (yet), as there's no clear Apple logo on it, but man that's a nice looking tablet device, and even Engadget says they have no idea what it is.

The thing is, this picture just appeared with Shufflegazine's piece, and while Hwang did go on and on about how much he loves Apple stuff (and yes, the two companies have a long history of sharing some hardware), there's not word one about that tablet or anything like it in the piece, no hint of any other hardware or partnership announcement. It could be a prototype, it could be another tablet we're just not recognizing, or yes, Hwang could have just thrown it down on the table during the interview, and Shufflegazine could have just completely missed it. [They didn't. -Ed.]

Though if that last one is true, we have no idea how it happened. How do you cover Apple and their gadgets and avoid being drawn to that tablet. It's so... thin and well-designed. We'll be honest, if we were in the room, we might have licked it then and there to claim it as our own.

Thanks to Nemanja for the tip.

TUAW Nvidia CEO loves Apple, possesses mysterious alien device originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple - Macintosh - Unofficial Apple Weblog - Nvidia - Dubai [via http://www.tuaw.com/]

Congressional caricatures on the App Store: The nays have it

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

Let's face it, America: if you're looking for "obscene, pornographic or defamatory" content, you can pretty much count on the US Congress to satisfy your jones. Put those representatives into cartoon bobble-head form, however, and stack them up with contact and district info in a handy-dandy iPhone app... well, that's just not cricket, according to the App Store review team.

Cartoonist & MAD magazine contributor Tom Richmond was commissioned to produce said caricatures for the iPhone app in question, and unfortunately they've run afoul of clause 3.3.14 of the developer agreement, the 'Apple's reasonable judgment' rule regarding potentially objectionable content. Richmond is scratching his head trying to figure out what about his caricatures could possibly be considered reasonably offensive, compared to some of the other fine entertainment apps already gracing iPhones worldwide. Still, it's at least consistent with Apple's previous rejections of things that are funny.

On some level it's unsurprising that an app filled with congressional bobbleheads is finding it a bit of a slog getting through review; that's a lot of potential angry phone calls for Apple to take.

[That's Dennis Kucinich over there.]

TUAW Congressional caricatures on the App Store: The nays have it originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone - AppStore - Apple - Tom Richmond - Dennis Kucinich [via http://www.tuaw.com/]

Sunfire v210: Bad magic number in disk label ... Can't open boot device: HELP !?

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:04:13 -0700

Forum: SUN Solaris Posted By: rmt Post Time: 04-01-2009 at 06:57 AM [via http://www.unix.com/]

Yet Another Blurry and Fake iPhone 3G Summer 2009 Image (It's Iron Bar Time!)

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:00:00 -0700

As WWDC '09 races towards us, we keep being bombarded by alleged iPhone 3G Summer 2009 images. This is the last one, which looks totally FAKE to me. (Click to enlarge both images.)

Whatever. I don't care at this point. Or I do, but seriously: People, if you are going to send us images of any of the new summer iPhones, by all means send them, but for the love of all that is good and covered in vanilla frosting, get a good camera and make a clear shot. You know, because otherwise I would have to get my:

again, and it won't be pretty. Thank you.

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Spy Shot Reveals... Traditional Apple Store Tables In New NYC Apple Store

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:30:00 -0800

Work continues on the posh Manhattan Apple Store, and reader/levitation expert Vincent snapped us some pics of this latest bastion of Apple retail consumerism. It looks like an Apple Store... from the sky—at night! Also, wooden tables. Trendy ones.

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Shazam offers paid app, downscales free version

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Filed under: iPhone

VentureBeat reports that Shazam [iTunes Link], an app that's long been a favorite among several TUAW staffers, is now offering a paid version. The $5 Shazam Encore (link opens iTunes) offers faster, unlimited tagging of music. A new mode designed for your car will tag whatever music is playing over the radio if you have your iPhone or iPod Touch hooked up to a car adapter. There are also recommendations based off existing tags, the ability to search Shazam's database, and more.

This new feature set does come at a cost to new users of the Shazam free app. New users can now only tag five pieces of music per month. The VentureBeat article adds that existing users of the free app can still tag with no limits.

[Via Macworld]

TUAW Shazam offers paid app, downscales free version originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone - IpodTouch - Apple - Shazam - ITunes [via http://www.tuaw.com/]

Verizon's LG Dare Full Review (Verdict: Best iClone Yet)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:03:20 -0700

"Dare to be different," the saying goes, but the LG Dare is really Verizon Wireless's attempt to fit in, to offer a phone that's more like the AT&T LG Vu and Sprint Samsung Instinct, not to mention Apple's similarly priced iPhone 3G. The truth is, the Dare may not be as glamorous or well-priced as the Instinct, but it has a better browser, a motion sensor and some cool software tricks that make it a fine phone for people who choose to remain in Verizon's walled garden. And it puts Verizon's previous iClone attempts, the LG Voyager and the Samsung Glyde, to lowdown dirty shame.

As I think we've firmly established, we call these iPhone clones because they are made superficially with the look and feel of the iPhone in mind. They are not direct competitors to the iPhone, as they don't run on a smart, open platform like iPhones?or Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones?do. The Dare, like the Instinct, is closed and proprietary, geared to customers who like much of what the carrier has to offer, and would just like a better way to make use of it. And after spending some time with the Dare, I can safely say that, much like the Instinct, it really does let you do that. Easier Access

For starters, Verizon has done away with its dependence on unchangeable, annoyingly deep menus. With the Dare, you can drag any app or function directly to the desktop for one-click access. You can add key people to the Favorites launcher, where you simply drag their face to the phone or message icons to call or launch a new SMS.Even those cryptic notification icons always seen at tops of phones are clickable on the Dare.E-mail and Web

Let me get this off my chest first: The Dare browser is WAY better than the Instinct's, both in rendering speed and page layout. You can navigate Gizmodo with very little trouble, especially if you're going read-only. My only complaint was that there was no way I could find to speed-scroll through so many blog posts without giving my thumb a callous.Verizon's E-mail app is basically the same as it's been for about six or eight months. I do not recommend it for business use, as it's not very full featured, but I was able to get the Dare to notify me whenever any mail from three different accounts came through, and the iPhone-like QWERTY keyboard with pop-up letters really helped when typing. The only trouble I had sending e-mail was due to a funky POP3 account with ambiguous recommended settings. (One negative: You can't edit POP settings once you've configured them, so I had to keep deleting and adding the same account over and over again.)

Premium Unlimited-Use Plans

The good news is, unlimited use of e-mail and web are included in Verizon's new premium price plans, along with unlimited text messaging, unlimited use of basic V Cast clips and ACTUALLY USEFUL stuff like the ESPN MVP sports and WeatherBug web apps. Though it seems at first glance that pricing is a tad higher that Sprint's, the difference is negligible:

$80/month - 450 primetime talk minutes

$100/month - 900 primetime talk minutes

$120/month - 1350 primetime talk minutes

$140/month - Unlimited talk minutes

And yes, there are family premium plans that give you these perks for multiple (compatible) phones. The phone itself is $200 after a mail-in rebate.

Lighter Features

In our introductory walkthrough video, we showed you some awesome traits. After a revisit during our review, here's how those features held up:

? Slow-mo video cam - It's a bit grainy, but with decent light, it could make some interesting videos at 120 frames per second. The 3.2 megapixel camera is decent, but nothing to write home about.

? Full photo editing - Speaking of camera, the editing feature is not as "full" as we first thought. There's no red-eye reduction or shadow/highlight or color adjustment. Most of the options are actually novelty, and even for being silly they are not very useable.

? Music player - Good: Plays MP3s and even iTunes Plus DRM-free AACs that you drag to the "My Music" folder of the MicroSD card (up to 8GB); Bad: Still has issues with tags, and appears to count image metadata as additional song files, so browsing by Artist or Album is fine, but browsing "All Songs" is messy. In addition to that the video player reads standard MP4 (but not H.264), and pauses songs when you switch to video playback, only to pick up where it left off once you're done.Hardware

Like the Sprint Instinct, there's a 3.5mm jack for universal headphone fit, but unlike the Instinct, the Dare has a motion sensor inside that tells whether you're holding the phone horizontally or vertically. Videos, photos and the music browser all automatically adjust, as do keyboards and web pages. It's a nice touch, though I'll be honest, you don't really miss it on the Instinct.

The Dare's touchscreen leaves something to be desired. It's not as snappy as the Instinct's, and even after calibrating the screen, I found myself resorting to fingernail tapping to gain some precision.

The body of the Dare is a tad chunkier, but shorter too, with a slightly stubbier screen.

Dare vs. Instinct

The Instinct is, inside and out, a more elegant device. I preferred Instinct's e-mail app, and its included news, sports and weather web apps were great. Verizon is promising some unlimited-use apps like ESPN MVP and WeatherBug to compete with that, and while they're pretty nice programs, they were not ready to be used on the Dare at the time of this review.

The thing I can't stand about the Dare is VZ Navigator. I have tried to appreciate this, and since unlimited use of it comes with the premium plan, it can be considered a feature of the phone. Still, it's the worst GPS UI I've ever played around with, and Verizon would do much better to kill off their own licensed app and go with Telenav, which Sprint and AT&T both use.

Still, after playing with both, I have to say that the Instinct's aesthetic assets don't fully make up for the Dare's key advantages, one of which happens to be Verizon's network. In the northeast at least, there's no substitute.

Conclusion

Like the web apps, there are a few more wait-and-sees: Visual voicemail isn't in effect yet, and may or may not come via over-the-air update. Rhapsody is just launching today, and for $15/month extra you will be able to sideload the Dare with Rhapsody-to-Go tracks, though a Windows PC is required for that.

I am very content to say that this is Verizon's best attempt at a customizable, user-friendly touchscreen phone, and that, if you are into buttonless touch interfaces, you could do a lot worse across all the carriers. I think the $200 iPhone trumps the $200 Dare if you don't care which carrier you're on, but for those of you who are sticking with Verizon, you might, um, venture to pick up a Dare. [LG Dare at Verizon Wireless]

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Snow Leopard's 35 New Desktop Pictures Feature Nature, Fine Art and… Graffiti?

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:20:00 -0700

Here are the 35 new desktop images Snow Leopard is shipping with next month, as found by CreativeBits. There are the expected plants and nature images, but there's also new fine art and graffiti shots. Graffiti?

There's definitely some new/different stuff here, such as the photos of an actual Snow Leopard, high-res scans of famous fine art and then those graffiti shots. How street of you, Apple! And as for that grey camo shot, well, I don't even know what to say about that. To each his/her own, I guess. [CreativeBits via Purnell]

Grey camo. Really, Apple?

Zoomed out, this says "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air"

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Windows 7 tops Vista software sales, lags behind in hardware

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:00:02 -0800

Microsoft's heavily hyped Windows 7 debut was a success for the Redmond, Wash., company in terms of boxed software, which saw a 234 percent increase over Vista, though PC hardware sales slowed. [via http://www.digg.com/apple]

Delete first column in tab-delimited text-file

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:02:08 -0700

Forum: Shell Programming and Scripting Posted By: andmal Post Time: 03-13-2009 at 01:21 AM [via http://www.unix.com/]

The iPhone-to-Android Switch: 10 Things You Need to Know

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:40:00 -0800

You've had it. Maybe with AT&T. Maybe with Apple's crushing, dictatorial grip strangling the App Store. Whatever the reason, you're going to Android: Land of freedom, carriers not named AT&T, and the great Google. Here's what you need to know.

It's All in the Google Cloud

Android phones don't sync with your computer. That's because they don't have to: Your contacts, calendar and mail are all kept up in the great Googleyplex. Unfortunately, Google's Contacts manager, while it's gotten better, is kinda crappy, and all of your Contacts are beamed down to your phone from there.

So even after you get the actual contacts you wanna talk to exported to Google Contacts, one problem is that all of your Google contacts, like everybody you email, show up on your phone. What you have to do is either sort your contacts into different groups and tell the phone's Contacts app to show only the groups you only wanna see, or to only show you people with phone numbers. If you wanna sync your contacts, so you have a master copy on your computer and can manage them from there, that problem takes a bit of legwork—at least on Windows.

If you're on a Mac, it's easy to keep your Contacts synced—just tell Address Book to sync with Google. On Windows, you'll need a third-party app, like GO contact. That way, you can manage your contacts on your desktop, and have a local copy that's always synced up with what Google's got.

Calendars are easier: Google's got an app for that.

Exchange support varies from version to version: Android 2.0 has it, previous vanilla versions of Android don't, but carriers like Sprint and hardware makers like HTC have been rolling their own Exchange solution into Android. Check the box, in other words.

The Gmail App Is Amazing

If your primary email account is Gmail, that's almost reason enough to go Android. Not only is Gmail pushed to your phone, the Gmail app is an absolutely perfect rendition of the Gmail experience for the small screen. Threaded conversations (hurray), full label support, starring, archiving and a true Gmail look-and-feel. It's even better in Android 2.0, which finally includes support for using multiple Google accounts with the Gmail app, and a few interface tweaks to make it easier to use.

For your non-Google accounts, there's a separate email app that's a pretty standard IMAP/POP mobile email app. Not amazing, not bad.

For That Matter, All of the Google Apps Are Amazing

You might be switching to Android for political reasons, or just to get away from AT&T, but what's gonna make switching actually work is that all of the Google services are fantastic, and often, more powerful than their iPhone counterparts.

Google Talk is the non-Gmail killer app for me, and highlights just how badly the iPhone needs a native messaging app—it's like BlackBerry Messenger, but for Google. (Or mobile AIM, but less shitty.) Keep in mind, anyone signed in to Gmail on a desktop browser can be reached through Google Talk if they've authorized it, so you've probably got more "buddies" than you might realize.

Latitude is actually built into the Maps app; Google Voice integrates seamlessly; and Google actually frequently releases updates them the Android Marketplace. Oh, and did I mention Google Navigation? Yeah.

What Google hasn't gotten around to yet is integrating Google Docs, but the web version with Android's HTML5-superpowered browser is pretty good.

Not Being on AT&T Is Just as Liberating As You'd Hoped

I've never had full bars on any Android phone—on T-Mobile, Sprint or Verizon—and not been able to do something online. End of story.

Multitasking Is All It's Cracked Up to Be, Mostly

"Hey look, someone @replied me on Twitter!" Pull down the window shade, check it out, go back to browsing this month's custard calendar. "Oh hey, an email." Down comes the window shade, I reply, and then instantly return to drooling more over pumpkin-pie custard, before flipping to Google Talk to tell my friend when we're going to slaughter zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 demo. All in 10 seconds, while listening to Pandora radio.

The drop down window shade is pure genius, and what makes the cacophony of background notifications from all the apps you've got running work. See, you don't actually close apps in Android like on the iPhone. You just switch between them, and the OS takes care of closing apps you haven't used in a while in the background. (Unless inside of an app, you explicitly tell it to shutdown, like Twidroid.) Anything a background app wants to tell you goes into the notification windowshade. Sure, there's a bit of lag switching back to the browser and then scrolling is choppy for a second on some phones, but it's a small price to pay. And bigger batteries in more recent hardware, like the Droid, are enough to make it through the day.

Android Takes More Work

Every version of Android gets a little smoother, a little more user-friendly, but stock versions are pretty barebones. Want to read a PDF attached to an email? You need an app. Visual voicemail? Gotta download it unless your carrier preinstalls one. Want a notepad? Find it on the Market. HTC takes care a lot of these little humps with their custom builds—which includes a PDF viewer out of the box, for example—and generally speaking, there's an app for the basic holes that need to be filled in, but get ready to do a little bit of legwork.

It's Not Quite as Secure

The lock screen is a series of swipes—not an actual passcode—and there's no remote wipe out of the box. Granted, with the iPhone you need a MobileMe plan to get remote wipe, but you don't have to look for an app to install, like SMobile Security Shield.

It's also less secure in the app department, at least on paper: Under Android, you can opt to install unverified programs through the settings menu. This may be a good thing to you—even your reason for switching—but it carries obvious extra risks.

The Android Marketplace Isn't as Nice as the App Store (Yet)

The only place to look for apps and install them is directly on your phone, through the Android Marketplace. With Android 1.6, the Marketplace did get a lot nicer to browse, with a new interface and actual app screenshots, but categories are still too broad, and you still can't do any of this on your desktop, where you have a much bigger screen. Updating apps? You've gotta do them one at a time, which is annoying.

The App Situation Is Getting Better, But Isn't There Yet

So here's the thing. The app ecosystem on Android has absolutely exploded, so it's much, much better place to be than it was six months ago, much less a year ago. In fact, for a lot of your everyday iPhone apps, there's now an Android counterpart or equivalent: Facebook, Pandora, Slacker, Remember the Milk, Foursquare, Shazam, Flixster, etc. The problem is, they're universally not as polished or full-featured. Facebook's missing messaging and events entirely; Twidroid, the best Twitter app, is hideous compared to any of the top 5 iPhone Twitter apps; Photoshop's lacks some of the effects it has on the iPhone.

Gaming is probably the single biggest thing you'll miss. There are games, yes. Some of them good. There aren't as many and they're not as fantastic. There's nothing Star Defense caliber. ~~Or Sim City.~~ (Oops.) Partly, this is simply a numbers issue: Android's not as big as the iPhone yet. But the other aspect is that there's a serious storage limitation for apps—just 256MB in some phones—which seriously cramps what some games can do, as well as how many apps you can install on you phone. Apps will get better, the app economy will get better, this is true. But for now, be ready for some limitations and possibly, disappointments.

Music and Video? Just Buy a Zune HD

Kidding. Sort of. Getting music and video onto your Android phone is a purely drag and drop operation—there's no official Google sync application to organize and get your 10 gigs of music onto your phone. There is an Amazon MP3 store, and it's okay. There are third-party solutions, like DoubleTwist or Windows Media Player. But once you get the music on there, the music player itself kinda blows. It's ugly and just not very nice to use. On the upside, it plays Ogg Vorbis, open source fans.

Movie watchers are in even worse shape with Android. Your best bet is to avoid the native player that's sort of hidden and to actually use a third party app, Meridian. Or just get a Zune HD for your music and video, and you'll be much happier.

I think that covers the basics guys. Yeah, Android's not as polished or smooth, but you know what? It's actually quite livable over here. If there's something else you wanna know—or want to share—about switching, drop it into the comments.

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

October 2009 OS stats: Windows 7 passes Snow Leopard, Linux

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:50:00 -0800

Windows 7 arrived two weeks ago and so far it's selling quite sell. With Mac OS X 10.6 becoming available less than three months ago, and Ubuntu 9.10 arriving last week, we feel it's a good time to start watching the market share for operating systems, in addition to our monthly posts on browser market share. At this point in time, Windows continues to dominate with more than 90 percent of the market, Mac OS is above the five percent mark, and Linux is just under one percent. In October, Windows was the only operating system not to show positive growth.

[via http://arstechnica.com/]

Dislike 0.2 Adds a Disapproving Dislike Button to Facebook

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0800

Firefox only: Since the dawn of the Like button on Facebook, people have rallied for it's counterpart, the Dislike button. Although Facebook hasn't stepped up to the plate with their own Dislike button, French developer Thomas Moquet has made it possible for Firefox users.

If your Facebook feed is anything like ours, a Dislike button could be more than useful to let the overly lewd, crude, or socially unacceptable friend, know just how you feel about their updates. (Then again, you could just hide that user.) Only other Firefox users who have the add-on installed will be able to see your disapproval, so it's not as though it's tapping into some secret Facebook feature or anything like that.

Dislike 0.2 is a free, experimental extension, works wherever Firefox does.

[via http://www.lifehacker.org]

How to: Install Apps on Your iPhone 3G or iPod Touch Easily and Free

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0800

If you want to install cool apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch for free, easily, breaking Apple-imposed limitations without breaking your warranty or Applethingie, here is the how-to guide for Mac and Windows users.

What is a jailbreak?

Jailbreaking is the process required to install applications in your iPhone or iPod touch. It is a very easy procedure. It's also safe: There are no risks in this operation*, as you can easily use iTunes to restore your iPhone or iPod touch to the default factory settings. When you do that, the iPhone will be like new.

Why jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch from Apple's iron fist?

You should jailbreak your iPhone or iPod if you want to install really cool and useful applications that are not in the iTunes App Store. Many of these apps are a complete must for any iPhone user but are not allowed by Apple in their iTunes App Store.

This is what you can do with a phone that has been jailbroken:

? Use your iPhone as a 3G modem with your laptop.
? Record video using Cycorder.
? Unlock your iPhone installing a simple program, so you can use a pre-paid card when you go out on vacation instead of paying outrageous roaming charges.
? Follow speech turn-by-turn directions in a GPS program.
? Copy and paste (yes, copy and paste).
? Play Nintendo Entertainment System games and other emulated classic cames (like Monkey Island!)

In other words: Do it.

*WARNING* Of course, the usual do this at your own risk and we are not responsible caveats still apply, but this process is really fool proof thanks to Apple's iTunes factory reset. If you are looking to unlock your iPhone now or in the future, DON'T USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS or you won't be able to unlock it. You will need a different process, which we will explain in another How To.

Opening the backdoor (Mac Users only)

The first thing you need to do to install free apps in your iPhone or iPod is putting it into DFU mode, or Device Firmware Update mode. Don't worry, this isn't anything weird: It's what your device goes through every time you update the operating system in it. With this step, you will be making the iPhone go into this state.

This is the only long part of this tutorial because—since the 10.5.6 update—Apple has made it difficult to easily connect your Mac to a manually DFU'ed iPhone or iPod. This can be solved by replacing some USB drivers from a previous version of Mac OS X. If you have 10.5.6 installed, follow these instructions:

Step 1. To do this, you need to get yourself a free Apple Developer Connection account. Since you are using iTunes with your device, you are already almost there: Just log in with your Apple ID from here. The form will ask you to answer a couple of questions (just answer whatever you want), and you'll be done as soon as you click the Accept button.

Step 2. Now you need to download and install the drivers. Go to this page and look for this file:

IOUSBFamily-315.4-log.dmg" for Mac OS X10.5.5 Build 9F33

Once it's downloaded, disconnect ALL USB peripherals except for your Apple keyboard and Apple mouse and install the package included in the disk image.

Once you restart after the installation, you will be ready to run QuickPwn, the program that will allow you to install the applications.

Important: Once you complete the jailbreaking process, you have to restore the previous USB drivers. Go to to this page and download IOUSBFamily-327.4.0-log.dmg" for Mac OS X 10.5.6 Build 9G55, then repeat the same operation. Once you restart, Mac OS X 10.5.6 will be restored to its original state.

Freeing your iPhone or iPod touch (all users)

Here's the easiest part: Running QuickPwn. QuickPwn is a program that will easily "jailbreak" your iPhone or iPod touch. Jailbreak, as the name says, just means breaking Apple's limitations on accessing your device, allowing you put anything you want in it. This means installing any application you want, and not only the ones that Apple allows you to install.

Step 1. Download QuickPwn for Mac OS X or Windows from any of the following links:

Windows
? QuickPwn 2.2.5 for Windows: Get the official release via Torrent here.

Unofficial mirrors
? http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/QuickPwn225-2.zip
? http://foskarulla.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
? http://downloads2.touch-mania.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
? http://www.applei.ph/devteam/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
? http://phonenews.com/phones/gsm/apple/QuickPwn225-2.zip
? http://rabstalk.bplaced.net/mirrors/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
? http://www.evil-crew.de/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
? http://daniel14.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip

Mac OS X
? QuickPwn 2.2.5: Get the official release via Torrent here.

Unofficial mirrors
? http://iphone-dev.fgv6.net/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
? http://iphone.schwarzmetall.cn/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
? http://rabstalk.bplaced.net/mirrors/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
? http://jmcoon.net/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
? http://www.iphone-storage.de/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
? http://downloads2.ipod.backshot.eu/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
? http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg

Step 2. Run QuickPwn and pick the kind of device you have: iPhone, iPhone 3G, or iPod Touch.

Step 3. Follow the instructions on the screen. QuickPwn is completely automated:

? Firstly, it will download all the necessary components from Apple on its own.

? Then the software will build a custom iPhone operating system, which includes Installer and Cydia, the two programs that will allow you to install the iPhone applications outside of the iTunes Apps Store microsystem.

? When QuickPwn asks you to enter your system password, do it. It's not malicious. It just needs this to work.

? Finally, follow the precisely timed instructions on the screen to put your device on DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode. QuickPwn will do the rest.

If something doesn't work, don't worry. Start the process again. If your device gets a bit nutty, restore it to default factory settings using iTunes, and you will be back to square one, no harm done.

Step 4. Be patient as your iPhone restarts. Once it's done, you are done too. It's fun time.

Installing the applications

This is where the fun starts. You will notice two new icons in your iPhone or iPod touch's springboard: One says "Installer" and the other says "Cydia". These are the two competing systems for installation of software. It doesn't really matter what you use to install your software. Most applications can be installed from both—there are exceptions, like xGPS, which can only be installed on Cydia—and both allow you to browse and install software from a a variety of sources.

? Browsing the catalogs. Whatever system you choose, installing applications is as easy as going through the available catalogs and picking the application you want.

? Manually adding applications. There will be times in which you will discover applications on the web which are not in the default catalogs in Cydia or Installer. Fortunately, you can add these by just entering the URL provided by the developer in the web page, a process that is referred to as "Adding a source". Here's how to do it:

In Cydia

? Click on "Manage."
? Click on "Sources."
? Click on "Edit" and then "Add."
? Enter the address in the dialog field.
? Click on "Add source."

In Installer

? Click on "Sources."
? Click on "Edit" and then "Add."
? Enter the address in the field.
? Click "Done" and get back to sources by clicking on "Sources."

And that's it. Now you can install any application you want using either program. Have fun!

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Parallels Desktop 5 claims performance edge in Win-on-Mac

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:29:32 -0800

Parallels has announced that the fifth version of its x86 virtualization software, Parallels Desktop 5, is now shipping for Mac OS X. Like competitor VMware's Fusion 3, it adds support for running on Snow Leopard and hosting Windows 7 on a virtual machine. However, independent benchmarks show that Desktop 5 still retains a performance lead, specially in 3D graphics performance.

The latest version of Parallels' solution to run Windows on a Mac—hey, it runs Linux just fine, too—boasts 70 new features, most of which are related to OS integration and speed improvements. Users can now choose from several levels of running a VM, from full-screen all the way to a "Crystal Mode" enhanced Coherence, where Windows applications integrate with running Mac OS X applications, similar to the way Classic worked for Mac OS 9 applications. It also adds support for multi-touch gestures in Windows, format-retaining copy & paste (with images) between Mac and Windows, copy & paste support for Linux VMs, "true" multi-monitor support, and an always-on Windows application folder in the Dock for quick access.

[via http://arstechnica.com/]

iSync and RAZR V3xx

Tue, 26 May 2009 11:47:34 -0700

iSync 3.0.2 won't sync with Motorola RAZR V3xx. Looking for a fix. So I recently got my Motorola V3 replaced with a V3xx through my carrier's insurance program. I had used iSync all the time to sync the phone's calendar with iCal and its contacts with Address Book (also both ways). However, the V3xx is unable to sync with iSync 3.0.2. When I try to add it as a device, I get an error message saying "This device is not supported by iSync."

I have found two plugins for iSync that allow it to sync with the V3xx (at http://tinyurl.com/pjrbpp and http://tinyurl.com/qlelxz), but unfortunately neither of them work with iSync 3.0.2 (which I have on my Macbook running 10.5.7). When I try to start up iSync with either of those plugins in the "PhonePlugins" folder in my library, I get an error message saying "The following plug-in doesn?t work with this version of iSync."

Does anyone know of a plugin for iSync 3.0.2 that would allow me to sync with the Motorola RAZR V3xx? Or alternatively, does anyone know how to modify the plugins I found to work with iSync 3.0.2? [via http://ask.metafilter.com/]

Apple TV 3.01 Update Saves Your Data From "Temporarily Disappearing"

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0800

Word to the wise: Update your Apple TV to 3.01 stat, else suffer the strange data disappearing act some users report is occurring with 3.0 during syncing. It's important to note the data was not deleted, just "invisible."

Update now, says Apple. [TUAW]

[via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/]

Hackintosh Netbooks May Be Safe in 10.6.2 After All

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:45:00 -0800

Earlier in the week, we reported that the then-current build of Mac OS X 10.6.2 took away support for the Intel Atom processor, which could break Hackintosh netbooks. It turns out, though, that the newest build has re-enabled Atom support. However, we'd still recommend being cautious when 10.6.2 officially rolls—don't upgrade right when the final release comes out until you know what's in it—but hopefully this will assuage some fears. Photo by Travis Isaacs. [Stell's Blog via Wired]

[via http://www.lifehacker.org]

Google Wave Notifier Alerts You to Unread Waves

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:40:00 -0700

Firefox: Google Wave probably isn't part of your day-to-day routine yet, but it might help to know when new waves are waiting for you. Google Wave Notifier does exactly that, checking for unread wave messages on an interval you prefer.

Chad Smith, author of the similarly helpful Google Voice Notifier, patched together this 0.0.1 Firefox extension from a rewrite of his Voice add-on, so there are definitely a few kinks to work out, especially if you use a Firefox apart from the mainstream build. Smith's Google Wave Add-On (as it's technically, generically titled) does exactly what it promises, though—stores your login credentials, checks for messages every X minutes, as you specify, and puts a number in your status bar if you've got unread waves. You can jump to Google Wave from a right-click—though it probably should take you there with just a single, standard click.

Google Wave Notifier/Add-On is a free download, works wherever (mainstream) Firefox does.

[via http://www.lifehacker.org]

How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, Start to Finish

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Two years ago, I detailed how to build a Hackintosh for under $800—then covered how to do the same with less hacking. Now that Snow Leopard's out, we're revisiting the Hackintosh, building a Hack Pro from scratch for roughly $900.

For folks eager to try a Mac but never wanted to plunk down the high price tag to get it, the Hackintosh has always been an attractive option. That said, it's not something you should take on lightly unless you're willing—even enthusiastic—to build and maintain a PC entirely from scratch. I can't guarantee it'll be easy, but if you follow this guide step-for-step (it's exhaustive) and stick with the same (or at least roughly the same) hardware as I am, I can vouch for a rock solid system that also happens to cost a good deal less than you'd pay for a comparable Mac.

Price Comparisons

Most Hackintosh enthusiasts will say you shouldn't build a Hackintosh primarily to save money, as it's more than just an insert-disc-and-click install. Still, I always enjoy looking at the price differences between my Hackintosh and Apple's current offerings. At the moment, the cheapest Mac in the Apple store is a Mac mini sporting a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 120GB hard drive. For $300 more, I'm running a 3.0GHz Quad-Core processor, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and a damn saucy video card. I could have made this build much cheaper by skimping on hardware and still ended up with a great little machine, but I liked aiming for around the $800 price point from my last build—plus I really wanted to make it fly.

The most expensive iMac, by comparison, has only a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of memory for $2,200 ($1,300 more than my build, but it is built into a monitor), while the cheapest Mac Pro has a single 2.66GHz Quad-Core processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 640GB hard drive—and it costs $2,500 ($1,600 more than mine, though it's a different and better processor and DDR3 rather than DDR2 RAM). In short, my $900 "Hack Pro" sports nearly as good or better hardware than any Mac that Apple sells short of the $3,300 8-Core Mac Pro (which can, incidentally, get more expensive, but it won't get much better).

The Hardware

You can find plenty of hardware capable of supporting OS X on a Hackintosh—there's no definitive build—but we're not going to go into that here. I've put together a list of hardware that I'm using and that I can guarantee will (or at least has) run Snow Leopard like a dream.

To make it easy, I've created my entire build as a wishlist over at Newegg. Unfortunately, Newegg's not cooperating with me when I try to make it public right now, so here's a link to everything I bought:

Antec Sonata III 500 Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad 3.0GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor
GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory x 2 (for a total of 8GB)
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Pioneer CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model
10/ 100/ 1000/ 2000Mbps PCI Copper Gigabit Network Adapter (The motherboard has onboard Ethernet, naturally, but this particular board has some problems with onboard in the Hackintosh world. Luckily, Ethernet cards are extremely cheap.)

The Build

Rather than detail every step necessary to put the actual pieces of your new computer together (this guide already reads like the Bible as is), I'm just going to point you to our first-timer's guide to building a PC from scratch. Do your building, make sure everything's booting up as it should be (i.e., you can boot the computer to the point where it does nothing, because you have nothing installed on it), then let's move on.

What Else You'll Need

Assuming you've purchased all the necessary parts for your build (linked above), you'll still need a few other things before you get started:

A USB thumb drive that's at least 8GB in size (I'm using this 16GB Corsair drive, but obviously any sufficiently sized thumb drive should do just fine.)
A copy of the Snow Leopard Install DVD. You can use the $29 "Upgrade" disc to install, even though this is a fresh installation. Note: If you feel like being completely honest, go ahead and buy the Mac Box Set—though, honestly, Apple's practically made it hard *not* to buy the fully functional install disc.
Another Mac to do some Terminal work on. (You'll only need this other Mac for a few steps. I used my MacBook Pro, but you could also borrow a friends for an hour or so, too.)

Step One: Prepare Your Thumb Drive

We're going to be installing Snow Leopard to your Hackintosh from your thumb drive rather than from the Snow Leopard install DVD, since in order to run the installer on your PC to begin with, you'll need to slightly customize the way the installer is loaded. (More specifically, we'll be loading a custom bootloader onto the thumb drive that will make booting into the install work like a charm.*)

So first things first: You need to format your thumb drive and then turn your Snow Leopard install disc into a disk image on your desktop. Here's how to do it:

Launch the Disk Utility application on your borrowed Mac (located at /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility)
Format and partition your thumb drive: Insert your thumb drive; after a second, it should show up in the Disk Utility Sidebar. When it does, (1) click on it, then (2) click on Partition. (3) Choose 1 Partition from the Volume Scheme, (4) give it a name (I called my HackintoshInstall) and select Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) from the Format drop-down. Now—and this is important—(5) hit the Options button and make sure GUID Partition Table is selected as the partition scheme. Once you've made sure to set all the appropriate settings, just (6) click Apply and Disk Utility will get to partitioning your thumb drive.
Copy the Snow Leopard Install DVD image to your hard drive: In the following step we'll be turning your thumb drive into a Snow Leopard Install drive, but before we do that, we need to get the installer off your DVD and onto your hard drive. To achieve this, insert the Snow Leopard DVD. When it shows up in the Disk Utility sidebar, (1) click on it, then (2) click New Image in the Disk Utility toolbar. Choose where you want to save it (for the sake of convenience, I put it on my Desktop), then click the Save button. Now go grab yourself a cold drink. This will take some time. When it finishes, move on to the next step.
Restore the Snow Leopard Install disk image to your thumb drive: Now, in Disk Utility, (1) click on HackintoshInstall (or whatever you called your partitioned thumb drive) and (2) click on Restore. (3) Drag and drop Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg from the sidebar to the Source field, then (4) drag and drop your thumb drive from the sidebar to the Destination field. Now simply (5) click on Restore and enter your password when prompted. Disk Utility will take everything on the Snow Leopard Install DVD and restore that image to your thumb drive—since, like I said above, we'll be installing Snow Leopard from our thumb drive instead of the DVD. Again, go grab yourself another drink; this will take a few minutes. When it finishes, your thumb drive has basically been turned into a Snow Leopard installation drive.

As I said earlier, the thumb drive needs a little finesse before you can boot the Snow Leopard installer on your PC hardware; let's apply that finesse now.

Warning: Semi-heavy Terminal work ahead. It's not that difficult, and I've gone into a lot of detail to make it as easy to follow along as possible, but if you're not at least a little comfortable with the command line, it may make you pretty uncomfortable. Beg or borrow a command line geek for an afternoon, if needed.

Make sure your thumb drive is still plugged in, open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type in:
diskutil list

We're interested in two pieces of information here. The first is the root identifier for your thumb drive (mine looks like disk2, as you can see in the screenshot). The second is the specific identifier for the portion of the thumb drive that contains the Snow Leopard installer. (Again, see the screenshot.) In my case, the first is disk2 and the second is disk2s2. Yours may vary depending on how many disks are on your system. Copy your identifiers down somewhere. We'll need them later.
Head to the Chameleon homepage, find the Latest Releases section of the site's sidebar, and download the latest version of Chameleon. (As of this writing, it's Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640.) Uncompress the download and move the Chameleon folder to someplace that's easy to access. I'm putting it on my Desktop.
Now, in Terminal, cd to the i386 folder of the Chameleon folder. On my Mac, the command looks like this:

(1)

cd /Users/adam/Desktop/Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640-bin/i386/

Yours should look similar if the Chameleon folder is on your Desktop, except your username should replace mine. (Quick shortcut: In Terminal, type cd , then drag and drop i386 folder inside Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640 to Terminal.) Hit Enter.
You're going to be running a couple of Terminal commands that will use Chameleon to make your thumb drive friendly to booting up the OS X installer. They are, as follows:
(2)

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk2

IMPORTANT: On your computer, replace rdisk2 with whatever you copied down above. In my case, the thumb drive's root identifier was disk2, so /dev/rdisk2 is as it should be.

After you type in that command and hit Enter, you'll need to enter your user password to execute it. Do so, then execute the following command, again paying special attention to the disk identifier we took note of above:

(3)

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk2s2

IMPORTANT: As I noted, my Snow Leopard partition was disk2s2, so that command is right for me. You should replace the disk2s2 portion of the command with whatever you noted as the portion of your thumb drive that contains the Snow Leopard installer.
Now we're going to place an awesome, custom EFI bootloader on your thumb drive that lets us load into the installer (and into Snow Leopard in general). So first, head over to netkas.org and download the bootloader from the bootloader link. Make sure you download it somewhere convenient. (Again, I've just downloaded it to my Desktop.)
Now head back into Terminal, where we're going to copy the boot file to your thumb drive. (One might think that you could just do this using Finder via drag-and-drop, but in this case, doing it via Terminal is necessary.) So, in Terminal, your command should look similar to this:

sudo cp /Users/adam/Desktop/boot /Volumes/HackintoshInstall

The easiest way to do this is simply type in sudo cp , (1) drag and drop the boot file into Terminal, then (2) drag and drop your mounted thumb drive from the desktop into Terminal. (The drag-and-drop method is a quick Terminal trick that pastes the full path to each file or directory.) After that, simply hit Enter. (Enter your password if necessary.)
I know it seems like we've already run a marathon, but you've got one last step and then it's relatively smooth sailing from here on. Download Extra.zip, unzip the file, and then drag and drop the Extra folder into your thumb drive. Nothing fancy, a simple drag and drop with your trusty old mouse will do. Once you've done that, open up your thumb drive and verify that it looks something like the screenshot below. (Notice the Extra folder, the boot file, and the OS X installer.)

Take a deep breath. By this time, you've completed all the hard work. Now it's time to boot up your machine, tweak your BIOS settings so they're ready for your OS X install, and then it's smooth sailing.

Step 2: Set Your BIOS

Before you can boot into or install OS X on your Hackintosh, you've got to make some small adjustments to your BIOS. Rather than taking you step by step through every change you need to make, I've simply snapped a picture of the relevant BIOS screens and added some notes. Just click through these images and make sure your BIOS settings match up.

Step 3: Install Snow Leopard

If you've made it this far, the hard part is over. Now it's time to install Snow Leopard, which—unlike what we've done so far—is extremely easy.

Make sure you've set the boot priority in your BIOS to boot from your thumb drive (you can see how in this pic), then simply plug your prepared thumb drive into your Hackintosh and power it up. Since screenshots aren't really an option—and since it's a fairly easy process—my install instructions come in video format:

The quick version goes like this: Boot into the Snow Leopard installer, format the hard drive you want to install Snow Leopard to (go to Utilities -> Disk Utility, then click on the drive, select 1 Partition, Mac OS X Journaled (Case-Sensitive), give it a name, and make sure GUID Partition Table is set in the Options. After you Apply the new partition, go back to the installer and install like normal to that drive. When you reboot after the install completes, press the arrow keys at the graphical boot menu and select the drive you just installed Snow Leopard to.

A Few Final Tweaks

You'll notice that, the first time Snow Leopard boots up, you're not enjoying any sound along with that snazzy intro video. We've got one small, but very simple tweak to make to get sound up and running. Here's how it works:

Download the Kext Utility, then download this audio kext (a kext is kind of the Mac equivalent of a driver) and unzip it to your Desktop. Once you've got both in front of you, drag and drop the ALC889.Fix.kext file onto the Kext Utility. You'll be prompted to enter your password, so go ahead and do that when you're prompted.
Once the Kext Utility finishes running, open up Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app). Once it loads up, (1) click on your Snow Leopard drive (mine's called Hack Leopard), then (2) click Repair Disk Permissions.
Once Disk Utility finishes repairing your disk permissions, just restart. After your computer reboots, your audio should be working like a charm. (If not, open up Sound in your System Preferences and try changing the Output device.)

As things stand on your system right now, you need to have your thumb drive plugged in every time you reboot in order to load the bootloader that allows your Hackintosh to load OS X. There are certain benefits to this (for example, right now you could quite likely unplug this hard drive from your Hackintosh, plug it into a Mac Pro, and it would work just fine), but it can also be a bit of a hassle. At this point, though, you can load the bootloader and other necessary components onto the Snow Leopard hard drive and change that drive to your primary boot drive in your BIOS. All you've got to do is head back to the step-by-step bootloader guide above and repeat every step, except this time you're applying each step to your hard drive rather than your thumb drive.

Congratulations! You've Got a Fully Functional Hackintosh

"But for realz," you ask, "does it actually work well?"

I've been using one or another Hackintosh as my main computer for two years now, and while I've run into the occasional bump in the road, they've generally run extremely well. In fact, things just seem to keep on getting better and better, and the current build I'm running (the one I walked you through above) feels like the fastest, most stable build to date.

That's not to say that you won't experience an occasional kernel panic—you may very well. But I get crashes on my MacBook Pro, too, and I've never felt that my current Hack Pro has any more problems than any other proper Mac I've used on a regular basis. That may seem a bit crazy, but it's true.

As for upgrading—often, you'll be able to upgrade your Hack Pro without any problems. That said, it's something you normally need to check on beforehand, and you should take all of the upgrade precautions before giving it a go.

I'm planning on letting readers know how my Hack Pro handles various 10.6.x updates shortly after they happen, though, and if it requires a little extra work, I'll show you how to handle it.

Let's hear your thoughts—whether you've dabbled in the world of Hackintosh, are interested in doing so, or just think it's plain crazy—in the comments.

Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker; he loves a good hack, cherishes his Macintosh, and craves a Mac Pro, so building a Hack Pro was a perfect fit. His special feature Hack Attack appears on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

* OS X boots in a different way than, say, Windows, using a boot tool called EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). On store-bought Macs, EFI is loaded on the hardware by default (in fact, in place of the standard BIOS most of us are used to). In order to boot OS X on our non-factory Macs, we need to create our own custom path to EFI.

Huge thanks to stellarola, Lorne, and wiredbynature for all their help in getting me up to speed on installing Snow Leopard on a Hackintosh PC. The Hackintosh community is large and active, and they are awesome.

[via http://www.lifehacker.org]